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So, I think it might be time for a little summary.

Mind you, what happens at the biggest companies is not as important as all the small and mid sized companys, but in a city like Hartford it seems like our big companies rule the econemy. partly because they are so damn big and employ so much of our workforce.

Here is what we have in greater Hartford's fortune 1000 companies

rank

37 United Technologies 58,681.0 Hartford

77 Aetna 30,950.7 Hartford

287 Hartford Financial Services 9,219.0 Hartford

424 Northeast Utilities 5,800.1 Berlin

512 Stanley Works 4,487.0 New Britain

749 Magellan Health Services 2,625.4 Avon

863 Phoenix 2,150.9 Hartford

THE BAD

I think we dodged a bullet with The Hartford. and since losing HIG to a merger was my worst case scenerio for this recession, I feel fairly confident that the city will be relatively stronger after this is all done than it was before

Phoenix is definately struggling, but it seems not for survival, more for an identity and direction. I think the leadership change was good, but obviously this company will be nothing compared to what it once was. I think however that was happening anyways. phoenix could have become an insurance powerhouse if it used the funds gained from going public responsibly, but instead this company made every mistake possible and is now just as small as always, but also it is now poor, and can not easily raise capitol. so we will see if we get to keep this company. it might end up sold or whatever, and it certainly already lost lots of jobs and face and everything. next year this will not be a fortune 1000 company.

I think Stanley must be in the bad colum. 2000 layoffs. but at least the company is not going anywhere. so it could be worse, and the brand is and will remain strong.

THE GOOD

United Technologies- Big daddy always seems to get the job done. only a few layoffs so far in our area, but they are in the middle of a 750 million cost cutting restructuring effort right now, so more heads will roll. There have been a couple small mergers though. there will be more. in fact yesterday the CEO said he has a "I still have a big appetite for M&A activity" He is looking for mergers in the $2B range that immediately lead to revenue growth. not 1 merger, but mergerssssss. and as usual the areas they are shoppin in are security, fire, Aerospace, and must compliment core operations.

Aetna seems to be doing just fine in the face of potential socialization of health care. Also in an attempt to diversify, the company has clearly been sniffing around some of its competitors. Humana and Cigna have been rumored. we will what if anything happens, but I would not be suprized of Aetna were to make a major move this year as consolidation hits the insurance business. If Aetna could double is size that would be amazing!!! I however would be thrilled if they made a purchase that even grew the company 50%

Travelers moved the HQ to NYC, so I guess thats better than St. Paul, so maybe we will get it back in Hartford Next year.

otherwise, Travelers was openly talked about as a suitor for the Hartfords P&C business.

I have no idea if Travelers will make any moves, but they are regularly mentioned as one of the healthiest insurance companies, and logic would dictate that they could easily make a move to grow the business. a merger the size of the HIG one would be a big boost to the region if Travelers could bring in a 9 billion merger it would be a serious boost to the region. In general, I think Travelers will be more conservative that Aetna, because Travelers is stable and safe. Aetna as a manages care company has to make a move or risks becoming victim or legislation. (legislation I support mind you)

Northeast Utilities is growing. no idea if they will do any acquisitions or anything like that, but they are growing their transmission business. and moving downtown and building an addition in Berlin. generally life is pretty good at NU. They did just raise a nice chunk of change when they joined the S&P 500. maybe ~$400 million will buy another electric distribution region? who knows, but I hope this utility continues to grow in scale and scope. utilities are stable companies and will always be a huge benefit to their home city. Look at what duke energy is doing in Charlotte. Wachovia fails, and duke just jumped in and is taking over their office building as the new HQ. I hope some day NU is as big as DUKE

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Not really Hartford but Conn. was included: overheard a couple days ago Rite Aid recently moved their northeast Rx distribution from their center in Dayville to Syracuse, New York. Many fear the entire Dayville facility will close sometime soon, and that a few hundred jobs will be lost in the Quiet Corner.

Rite Aid is really really hurting ever since they foolishly took over Brooks and Eckerd and expanded far more than they should have. Dayville was originally the Brooks distribution center, then taken over when Rite Aid bought them out, so perhaps consolidation would require the old Brooks infrastructure to go away. Walgreens and CVS are putting a hurt on them too. I remember seeing many people predict Rite Aid was soon to go under when Circuit City and Linens n' Things did the same.

If Rite Aid falls down and/or Dayville closes - that'll be a big big hurt in northeast Connecticut.

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NU keeps rolling

The proposed canadian transmission line from Quebec was approved!

The transmission line connects new England to a 1200 megawatt hydroelectric plant wich is part of a federally mandated plan to get more green erergy options to the consumers.

The line could cost up to 1 billion to construct.

this is a HUGE deal for NU. they are technicly partnered with NSTAR, but are by far the lead on this plan. (I hope they buy NSTAR some day) the expansion of the NU office in Berlin for its transmission business I assume is in anticipation of this new transmission line and the several other recent transmission projects hat have been completed.

to give a little idea how transmission has grown...

Revenues

PRODUCT 2006 2007 2008 AVG 2-YR GROWTH

1.Electric 5,336.00 4,930.80 4,716.10 -5.97%

2.Gas 453.90 514.10 577.40 12.79%

3.Transmission 216.00 298.70 424.80 40.25%

4.Other 355.00 389.80 416.60 8.34%

5.NU Enterprises 901.80 97.70 114.10 -36.19%

Expect the 2009 number to but quite a bit higher since I know some transmission lines just opened

http://www.transmission-nu.com/residential/default.asp

The Glenbrook Cables Project became officially in-service on November 11, 2008

The Middletown-Norwalk Transmission Project Energization Complete: December 16, 2008.

and several other projects coming

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agreed.

I hope that they do buy something, but I hope it is a company not based in New York either, because that might cement the HQ location in NYC. I would hope it would be a mid-west company, or even something over seas.

Also

DD opens in state house square tomorrow. I know its not even news, but I got the e-mail a moment ago from building management

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WOW, go NU

FERC Approves funding for the transmission line with Quebec.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved an unspecified funding arrangement for a major transmission project to link Hydro-Quebec with ISO New England that would deliver low-cost hydropower to consumers in the New England region.

The project is expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by four to six million tons of CO2 per year by displacing gas-fired generation in New England.

I found this on Oil and gas investor through my Bloomberg terminal

Copyright

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Webster bank is up to something

I am not sure what though and thats the problem :P

Yesterday on my bloomberg terminal I saw that company leaders were meeting with Sandler O'Neil in Chicago yesterday and today.

Then yesterday they started doing a conversion of prefered chares to common stock and cash.

the conversion basicly just redistributes debt and cash. so the company is either preparing for something or reacting to something.

I suspect news will be fourthcoming, but the Sandler O'Neil thins is the interesting bit.

they are an investment banking firm specializing in banks like WBS and their services include strategic planing, mergers and acquisitions advisory, raising capitol etc..

they may be looking to raise capitol, they may be for sale?

who really knows

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Farmington Bank is pusing its expansion big time right now it seems.

http://www.courant.com/business/hc-propert...0,5603035.storyThe bank announced a move to a new HQ building at 1 Farm Glen Blvd

the space is 53,000SF and was occupoed by Conneticare.

this will consolidate 5 small offices and leave room for about 20,000 SF of future growth.

what future growth you ask?

the bank is opening 5 new branches this year to add to its 12 existing branches.

this will bring the bank to 17 Branches, and will get the company involved in more commercial lending and government banking

as a result

Employment at the bank

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Good news for a local company. any time one of our companies buys another company, or even a division of another company its a good thing!!!

http://www.hartfordbusiness.com/news9172.html

Avon-based Magellan Health Services Inc. is buying the fee-based Medicaid service business from Coventry Health Care Inc. for $110 million in cash, the companies said today.Bethesda, Md.-based Coventry said that the First Health Services Corp. business no longer fit its long-term strategy. Based on a projected closing date of July 31, Magellan expects a boost of $7.5 million in profit and $60 million in revenue from First Health. That would raise its annual profit by 5 cents per share.

This piece of news comes after a very interesting article I read yesterday in Bloomberg about consolidation in managed care.

apparently informed sources see the number of managed care companys shrinking from 700 to less than 70. this is apparently going to be pushed by the government and medicare plans could be the presidents most powerfull too to make things happen. currently 260 different companies contract for medicare. if the government were to limit that down to 70, gergers would happen. the reason for all of this is actually simple and intelligent.

the government wants to lower health care costs. the best way to do this is preventative medecic, and only the larger, even largest providers can afford to do this, so the little guys will have to glom together or join a larger plan to do their part to lower health care costs.

Now the thing for Hartford is this. Aetna of course will do quite well as will the other big boys (United Health, Wellpoint, Cigna, Humana)

some of the other fairly large companies will likely do well also, but many others, especially the struggling ones will get gobbled up my the largest plans.

Ultimately I think there is a good chance that Aetna will stay in the top 5, but also that Magellan will remain as one of the largest. Having 2 of the largest plans would bode well for CT. Also Aetna would likely be much larger than it is today.

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Indeed.com Job Trends

This is an interesting map and chart. It says that Hartford has the 5th most robust job market in the nation.

Rankings Second Quarter 2009

50 most populous metro areas ranked by job postings per capita.

Rank (Last Qtr Rank) Metropolitian Area Job Postings Per 1000 People

1 (1) Washington, DC 133

2 (2) Baltimore, MD 90

3 (3) San Jose, CA 80

4 (7) Austin, TX 56

5 (6) Hartford, CT 54

6 (9) Seattle, WA 53

7 (8) Salt Lake City, UT 52

8 (11) Denver, CO 50

9 (5) Boston, MA 49

10 (4) Las Vegas, NV 49

11 (15) Charlotte, NC 49

12 (10) San Francisco, CA 47

13 (12) Milwaukee, WI 41

14 (30) Atlanta, GA 40

15 (13) Cincinnati, OH 39

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  • 2 weeks later...

Bermuda based XL Capitol agreed to sell XL Re Life America, Hartford to a French company today.

"SCOR S.E. says it wants to use XL Re Life America Inc. as a vehicle for expanding its U.S. life reinsurance operations.

SCOR Global Life US, a unit of SCOR, Paris, has agreed to pay the equivalent of about $45 million in cash for XL Re Life America, Hartford, a unit of XL Capital Ltd., Hamilton, Bermuda.

SCOR and XL Capital hope to close on the deal Sept. 30."

I have no clue if this is the entire Hartford operation for XL, but its great to see that the French firm will be using this as its base of US operations, and likely throw some money behind it.

I have no doubt this will lead to some jobs.

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OK, so I know this means NOTHING, but I am getting irritated with Peoples bank and their lack of action during the best growth opportunity in last century.

This company is talking the talk but not walking the walk. these guys have money and a stable stock price. they have watched ad the FDIC has handed banks over to lesser rivals and they have not bought anyone yet.

as a counter to PBCT, a company out of New York, that I once thought would be a perfect acquisition for Peoples has now grown to be at least as large as Peoples if not larger.

First Niagara used to be a bank that just had operations in Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and Albany. Its total assets were just 9.3Billion.

They jumped on the opportunity to buy 57 branches from PNC that brought them up to 13.6Billion

and now today they are paying 237Million is Stock(so they dont even need cash) for Harleysville national, and 83 Branch bank with assets of 5.6Billion bringing the total to 19.2 Billion.

funny thing is that afer this transaction the bank still has what would be concidered lots of cash and could even be in for more acquisitions.

they now Have a large market share across most of central NY, and borth Pittsburgh and Philly.

Peoples bank has in large part missed the boat.

why do I complain you ask?

because the 1800 employee First Niagara Bank will have close to 2800 employees after the PNC acquisition, and todays acquisition has 1100 employees.

sure there might be some jobs eliminated, but since there is no territorial overlap, I am fairly sure they layoffs would be minimal, and transfers would be more likely. transfers that will bring jobs to Lockport NY. having a $20 billion bank with almost 4,000 employees headquartered in your town is pretty sweet.

Peoples is in such a great position, but if they do nothing with this opportunity, they might as well have over lent and had to accept TARP funds.

ok i'm done

Wait, no I am not.

Webster just got an equity investment from Warburg Pincus today for 115Million.

and as part of the deal will gain a very experienced big time board member.

so apparently the talk is to now potentially look to "take advantage of business opportunities as the econemy begins to turn around"

thats merger talk.

also the stock jumped to $11.81 today.

people may have held steady at 15-18 a share, but peoples has brought itself back from 2.96 to 11.81 and even paid back TARP.

Just saying peoples seems to be sitting on their hands a bit too much.

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  • 2 weeks later...

There are some news items recently that bode well for little old Connecticut.

Today, The Hartford announced that they were successful in their recent stock issuance, and even raised an additional 150 million. this brings the equity gained to 900 Million.

900 million in cash can do a lot of good for a company like HIG. they can pay back debt and completely shore things up. If you look at it, with the TARP monies, and this equity, the company is actually quite liquid right now. I know it might be premature, but they might even be able to concider some kind of acquisitions(small ones)

ConnPost has an article about our 3 regional banks

http://www.connpost.com/ci_13000049

its just more about how all 3 are in good shape, and even though Webster may not be able to buy other banks right now, its not a target either.

New Alliance is capable of expanding, but likely will not, and Peoples is capable of expanding wildly.

Its good to have the banks in the state be fairly stable.

And another tid bit

Somerset Capital Group Ltd. is leaving Fairfield County to move to Milford.

Somerset will occupy 16,000 square feet, which is an increase of about 2,000 feet more than its Bridgeport offices, according to Bokor.

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Hello my people.

today I bring you an article fron ther HBJ about Hartford Hospital becoming a Health care giant. Giant is an overstatement, but it is good that Hartfords two largest Hospitals are becoming more regional corporations. this will be good for our life sciences industry over time.

http://www.hartfordbusiness.com/news9826.html

Also I feel the need to bring up some less happy info.

Northland is not in the best place right now.

I do not know how the overall holding company is doing, but I can see individual properties on the commercial property delinquincy list.

falling occupancy rates is definately hurting some of the office buildings that Northland holds, and I am sure the company is in no real position to do any developing for a while.

Cityplace II is on a watchlist for lease rollover, tenant issues and vacancy.

a 24,097SF tenant went bankrupt bringing occupancy down to 73% Loan to Value is 79% so a restructuring is most likely.

Metro center is 60 days past due but it looks like it was made current.

these kinds of things may happen all the time they really may, I have no idea, but It was suprizing to see these on there.

additionally, did anyone know that the short building, Bushnall on the park is in foreclosure?

I am just looking at the secured mortgages, so this does not necessarily mean anything, but its interesting to see a bunch of Northland properties on the watchlist.

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I read the Hartford Hospital stuff and it kind of shocked me the scale of what they are looking to do. I think they are in a good position to kind of bring a lot of those small regional hospitals into a much larger and cohesive health system though and if the UConn Health Center thing ends up happening we may actually get a world class health system in Greater Hartford. That would be a great thing.

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can you please tell me where you're finding this information?

as i've mentioned before i'm looking to get a place downtown and this is scary.

bushnell on the park are condos, how can they be in foreclosure? are people not paying their property taxes or something? the building was built in 1969 or something? you'd think it'd be paid off by now.

Also I feel the need to bring up some less happy info.

Northland is not in the best place right now.

I do not know how the overall holding company is doing, but I can see individual properties on the commercial property delinquincy list.

falling occupancy rates is definately hurting some of the office buildings that Northland holds, and I am sure the company is in no real position to do any developing for a while.

Cityplace II is on a watchlist for lease rollover, tenant issues and vacancy.

a 24,097SF tenant went bankrupt bringing occupancy down to 73% Loan to Value is 79% so a restructuring is most likely.

Metro center is 60 days past due but it looks like it was made current.

these kinds of things may happen all the time they really may, I have no idea, but It was suprizing to see these on there.

additionally, did anyone know that the short building, Bushnall on the park is in foreclosure?

I am just looking at the secured mortgages, so this does not necessarily mean anything, but its interesting to see a bunch of Northland properties on the watchlist.

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can you please tell me where you're finding this information?

as i've mentioned before i'm looking to get a place downtown and this is scary.

bushnell on the park are condos, how can they be in foreclosure? are people not paying their property taxes or something? the building was built in 1969 or something? you'd think it'd be paid off by now.

First off, you have nothing to worry about. Move downtown, this has nothing to do with anything that would affect the quality of life or even affect you financially.

The information is pulled from my Bloomberg terminal.

the foreclosure is simply the foreclosure on a commercial mortgage.

Bushnall on the park is the mid rise building next to the tower. it is condos, but is operated as a rental. the loan that defaulted was a commercial mortgage on the property taken out back in 2002-2003 when an investor bought the 129 condo/apartments. These guys were hoping to sell a few months ago as competition was heating up in the market. The reality is that the competition from all the new apartment buildings in Hartford have made it harder on this older apartment building. If they sold off some of the condos back in 2006 they would have made a killing instead they tried to sell the whole thing in 2007 when it was a little too late. The current market has destroyed the value of the building and therefore the collateral. this put the property under observation, but ultimately the lack if payment put this into foreclosure. The apartments are fine, the building is fine, and this has NOTHING to do with the condo tower.

I am sorry if the info I posted made you nervous. here is a link from the library about the place from just before the building sold to the guy who was foreclosed upon.

http://www.hartfordinfo.org/issues/documen.../hbj_073007.asp

I expect the lender (GMAC) will find a new buyer, or manage the building untill prices ervover. it is also possible that they renegotiate the terms of the mortgage.

if you want any more info I have it :)

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thanks for the info.

why would anyone get into a mortgage on 100+ units if they can't even make back the payments from renting them out, seems weird to me from an investment perspective. unless they were just going to do some quick maintenance and flip the place?

also wonder how the condo association works with the other 50 units that are owned. wonder how they split utilities, maintenance fees, etc.

anyways, i digress now, so no need to answer as i doubt it's pertaining to the title of the subject.

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thanks for the info.

why would anyone get into a mortgage on 100+ units if they can't even make back the payments from renting them out, seems weird to me from an investment perspective. unless they were just going to do some quick maintenance and flip the place?

also wonder how the condo association works with the other 50 units that are owned. wonder how they split utilities, maintenance fees, etc.

anyways, i digress now, so no need to answer as i doubt it's pertaining to the title of the subject.

REDQ <== ignore this its just to remind me the bloomberg command

Since I am still at work I can actually enlighten you on your rhetorical question.

First if you look at that article I posted you will see that the building sold for $2.2M in the late 1995-96 then renovated, then in 2002 it sold for $15.6M. I am sure the buyers had plans to flip the place again since they did very little to the building and in the article it says they were seeking $25-35Million. and the city valued the building at $23 Million.

the appraised value was 16.2M on 10/01/2002, but dropped to 8,875,000 on 02/11/2009, so the loan became well under water.

on buildings like this, the owner is looking to make his money on the increased valuation, and anything made on selling the property.

The anual debt service was 908,951

and income was 1,933,172 in 2007 with other expenses at 689297, so it looks like the building supported its lean back in 2007.

if the office condos were to lose occupancy it would be a problem, same with the rentals, and we know the building lost millions in value.

Ultimately the problem could come down to other properties the owner may have and ultimately an overall meltdown of their portfolio.

the loan monitoring shows that occupancy was 90% in 2005, 92% in 2006, and then dropped to 86% on 09/03/2008, but sits at 74% now. ultimately you can see the other buildings opening affected profitability. I am guessing those 2007 numbers were at 90% and the building is now losing money.

whomever gets this thing should sell off as many units as are vacant to young professionals and get it full again. that would be 30 units by my calculation. and get the ownership to 81 own / 100 rent.

Also sell the office condos, and once you get above 50% you could actually manage to sell the condos FHA and make some money on this pig.

it should be noted that the building being valued at 8.875M means the 129 units have an average value of 68,798

If you were to buy the building for that price I would think it to be easy to sell the unit out.

even at the value of the mortgage 11,626,880 the average unit would cost only 90,130.85 each

I have no idea the average square footage or anything like that, but you would think that this building is potentially viable.

most of the units are 725 or so SF

I hate to think that people are looking to sell this at 400/SF because there is just no market for that kind of money.

based on everything I see on the loopnet listing I have a hard time thinking that this building will not be sold. not unless GMAC is being greedy.

128 condos

28,000 SF class A office space

194 parking spaces

for 9-10 million it looks like a good deal. but the list price is private.

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